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Good afternoon, how has everyone been? I have had a good weekend doing this and that, we had plans to go to the Reptile Park with Jessica and Leo but as Jessica was sick we cancelled and we will do it in a few weeks time.

So next weekend is Easter, did you know that Easter is considered to be the most important and oldest festival of the Christian Church. It is the time when we celebrate the resurrection of Christ and held in the Western Church between the 21st March and 25th of April the date is based on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the northern spring equinox. This I found out via Google.

Now I am sure most people when they think of Easter think of the Easter Bunny and chocolate, but have you ever wondered what the hell is with the Easter Bunny, like what does a rabbit have to do with Easter. You may think this is some kind of modern invention but you would be wrong, most popular Easter traditions have their roots way back in history, like the Easter Bunny.

In fact the Easter Bunny can be traced back to ancient Anglo-Saxon times, way back when the hare was an important symbol of fertility so it played an important role in the pagan festival of Eostre, whatever that was.

Legend claims that this mystical goddess found a wounded bird and turned it into a hare so it could survive the winter. When this very same hare found it could lay eggs it made a gift of its eggs to the goddess who had protected him. And so the tradition of the Easter hare, or bunny was born.

Eggs have been an important fertility symbol for millennia,and they have always been associated with the rebirth of spring. And as eggs are associated with new life early Christians used them as

a visual symbol of the resurrection of Jesus. When people first starting giving eggs as offerings and gifts at Easter time they used birds eggs. They were painted bright colours to echo the vibrancy of the colours of spring after the darkness of winter.

In the UK and Europe early Easter eggs took the form of duck, hen or goose eggs. These were later replaced by artificial eggs until eventually, as chocolate became a more widely available foodstuff, the first chocolate eggs began to appear, in the early 1800s. The vogue for exchanging chocolate eggs at Easter quickly spread right across the globe so that by the end of the century chocolate eggs became the ubiquitous Easter offering.

Have you heard of egg rolling the tradition of egg rolling on Easter Monday dates back to Anglo-Saxon Germany. Although historians are unsure of the exact significance of egg rolling, it’s believed that for the early pagans the activity was seen as a way of bringing new life to the land at springtime. For early Christians, meanwhile, egg rolling could have been a representation of the stone being rolled away from Jesus’ tomb.

The tradition of eating hot cross buns on Good Friday has its roots even further back than early Christianity. Buns marked with a cross were eaten by the Saxons during their spring celebrations – it’s believed that the bun represented the moon and the cross the moon’s quarters. Christians continued the tradition but to them the cross symbolises the Jesus’ crucifixion.

Although chocolate eggs tend to the gift of choice at Easter time today, coloured, decorated eggs have also been an important symbol and gift shared at Easter time. The tradition of colouring and decorating eggs dates back to the Middle Ages when eggs would be painted bright colours to welcome in the new spring. The tradition continued and was adapted by different countries; in Germany, for example, it remains a tradition to paint eggs green and eat them on Maundy Thursday while in Greece and the Balkans eggs are dyed red to symbolise the blood of Christ.

But the most elaborate take on the tradition came from Russia, where in the late 1800s/early 1900s Russian aristocracy commissioned the French jeweller Faberge to create an egg like no other, fashioned from enamel and encrusted with the most dazzling jewels. These incredible Easter gifts are worth millions of pounds today!

The special fruit cake eaten at Easter, known as Simnel cake, is steeped in traditional symbolism. Traditionally the cake has a layer of marzipan on top and is decorated with marzipan balls – these symbolise the disciples, though Judas is left out and only 11 balls are added to the cake.

Damn it is Friday again, as you may have noticed I didn’t do a post yesterday, why you wonder, ok you properly didn’t wonder but I will tell you anyway. I was run off my feet yesterday, I had Summer all day and had to take Leo and Jess to the dentist, Leo had an appointment to check his teeth and his mum couldn’t take him on her own so I had to do it. It was just one thing after another all day and it was last night when I was in bed that I remembered I didn’t do a post. So you all missed out on Motivation Thursday, but now it is Five things Friday, so here we go.

Complimented on my parking skills, not once but twice today

I can’t drive into a parking spot very well

I can, however, reverse the car into any spot

Both Blain & Leo here for a couple of hours, hope they don’t fight

Felling so tired I could go to sleep now, it’s only 4.21pm……..what the hell

Hi all it is now Monday afternoon, I had a productive morning, I was sorting through some mail and went into Tim’s office to file something away and the state of the room annoyed me so much that I ended up spending a good hour cleaning the room up, which lead me to cleaning the area next to the stove in the kitchen.

Tim use to complain about the state of my computer desk but he has a whole room and it is usually a right mess far more so then my computer desk.

I was thinking yesterday about AM and PM when I was asked by one of my girls way back when what AM and PM stood for I said AM was after midnight and PM was past midday, well yesterday I thought what does AM and PM really stand for.

So I did what all people with internet do when they have such thoughts I Goggled it and it turns out thatAM stands for “ante meridiem”, which means “before noon” in Latin, while PM stands for “post meridiem”, which means “after noon” in Latin.

So now I have learnt something new, did you know what AM and PM stood for, my common sense told me it wouldn’t have stood for after midnight and past midday but I still think it is an easy way to explain AM and PM to young ones and those who may not be able to get their head around the Latin meaning.

No I know we all should know that there is a 12 hour clock and a 24 hour clock, the use of a 12 hour clock goes back to ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians who recorded and kept time by using sundials during the day and water clocks at night.

Egyptians are thought to be responsible for dividing the day in to 24 equal parts, because they counted their joints in their fingers instead of counting using their fingers as is now commonplace.

So is it 12PM or is it noon?

When you think about it technically speaking 12PM does not make sense, since it is not after noon, the same can be said for 12AM as that is not before noon. So it is recommended that one refer to these hours as midnight and noon. Although most digital clocks tend to show 12AM and 12Pm to specify midnight and midday.

Hey hey it’s Saturday Sunday so you are getting a run down of my Saturday on this lovely wet overcast Sunday. So were to start, let me think should I start at the start of the day and work forward or maybe I should start at the end of the day and work backwards hmmmmmmmmmm

Ok decision made I will start with the start of my Saturday, which had me waking with a headache, so I get up get dressed because I am straight out of bed and dressed for the day person, not a fan of sitting around half the day in my nightie. So I get dressed take my morning medication and sit to do the blog rounds and then write a post, some days I read blogs first other days like today I write my post first.

Anyway as I was saying I was doing the blog rounds and my headache was getting worse, so I decided I needed to have something to eat so I walk into the kitchen open cupboards and the fridge and can’t decide what I want to I return to the computer, this I do about 3 times before I decided to drive to Macca’s and get some breakfast.

Oh I might add that Tim took our car to work so I had to drive Natasha’s car and my plans of going to the library to return stuff went out the window, or more to the point off to work with Tim as the stuff to go back to the library was in my car. So I drive to Macca’s I order and waiting to advance through the drive thru and the guy in the car in front of me gets out if his car and walks back to tell me that he noticed that there was a large stream of water coming from my car, so then I decided I wouldn’t go out in it again and came home, sent Tim a text telling him what the guy said when I looked back to were I had driven I could in fact see the water.

Let’s move forward a couple of hours around midday my headache was really bad I decided to take strong pain relief and go for a nap but before I could lay down Natasha, Jessica and their boys turned up the boys run in give me a hug and then Natasha and Jessica start kind of yelling at each other about how Natasha left Jessica sitting in a car with 2 boys who took to fighting to get over being bored for an hour.

I ended up just going to bed and leaving them going at it in the lounge room, now while I was laying down I remember Natasha coming in saying she was taking her car, I also remember telling her about the water coming from the car. So I think I hear her leave in her car but when I got up from my nap her car was still here, so I thought I must had heard wrong.

The the next thing I know Jessica and Leo are back here she has decided to let Leo spend the night here, we talk for a while and she leaves. Oh I might add my headache is still hanging around and getting worse again.

When Tim gets home he says to me Tasha broke down, I said no when, he said this afternoon at the top of Bayview about half a k from my place anyway I say not that I know of, well it turned out she had taken her car and a hose had come off and she broke down at the top of Bayview. She rang Jessica to help her and she brought the car back here and now that is something else for Tim to look at.

By this time it is after 6pm and my headache is really getting bad and I was starting to feel unwell so I tell him that after Leo has his night time medication I was going to bed, he said ok but I could tell he wasn’t really ok with it. So by the time I went to bed at 7pm I was feeling so sick in the tummy and thought I was going to throw up at any time, after only maybe 15 minutes in bed I had to go to the bathroom coughing and retching. Leo was concerned and brought in the little orange bin from the bath room just in case I threw up and couldn’t make it the toilet, I asked him what happened to the rubbish in it and said I emptied it in the big bin and you need it just in case, he then said but try not to throw up in it as they you would have to clean up yuck vomit……………

I thank him and try to sleep but the smell of Tim cooking was really making me feel so much worse that I had to shut the bedroom door around 7.50pm I ended up throwing up (yes in the toilet) of course after I threw up I felt better and went straight to sleep.

This morning I am much better, no headache, and I will be having the girls and grandchildren here for lunch, I am doing silverside with mash and veggies.

Right now I am heading out with Tim and Leo to do some shopping I want a new electric knife as I lent mine to Kelli last Christmas and she still has it but Tim said she can keep it and we will buy a new one.

Ok home again and just in time to post this while it is still in the AM, Kathy and the girls are here and Kathy is sounding frustrated because Sydney-May says she is hungry but she will not eat anything, Kathy is fed up with making meals and tossing most of it out because Sydney-May will not eat.

Ok it is Saint Patrick’s Day and you know how much I know about Saint Patrick well you could write all I know on the top of a pin with space left over, yeah that is how much I know.

So I did what people do when they know nothing about something, I Google Saint Patrick and this is what I found out. The 17th of March is the day of his death, ok I knew that already and he is the foremost saint of Ireland, I also knew that.

Now for something I didn’t know, Saint Patrick’s Day was made an official Christian feast day in the early 17th century and is observed by Catholics, Anglicans, Eastern Orthodox and Lutheran churches ok have no idea what Eastern Orthodox and Lutheran churches are just saying. Also never heard of the Church of Ireland which is suppose to be Anglican.

The day commemorates Saint Patrick and the arrival of Christianity in Ireland as well as celebrating the heritage and culture of the Irish. It is a holiday in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland as well as in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Saint Patrick’s Day is celebrated by the Irish and others all over the world but mostly in Great Britain, Canada, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand and the U S A.

The colour green has been associated with Ireland since around 1640 when something called the green harp flag was used by the Irish Catholic Confederation whatever that was. Green ribbons and shamrocks have been worn on Saint Patrick’s Day since around 1680.

During the 20th century something called the St Patrick’s Day Cross became popular this is a Celtic Christian cross made of paper that was covered with silk or ribbon of different colours, it has a bunch of green silk in the centre.

What I do know is that St Patrick’s Day is a day when people wear green, drink green beer and get drunk, honestly for most people I bet they can’t tell you who St Patrick was or what he did they just see it as a day to wear green drink green drinks and get drunk.

I didn’t know when he lived until I Google St Patrick but for those who are interested he lived during the 5th century born around 386 AD and was a Roman.

I love my grandchildren each one of the the same amount, but there are times when I feel that Leo loves me more then my other grandchildren do, this morning I took him to school and yet again he wrapped his arms around my waist and wouldn’t let go. All he would say was he wanted nanna and that he hadn’t seen me in so long, I saw him yesterday, he was here with Blain for lunch but he felt like it had been sooooooo long since he last saw me.I told him that if this is how he is going to carry on I will not be driving him to school as it isn’t fair on him or me, me because I find it distressing when he has to be pried off me and him because he can become upset and that means his school day doesn’t get off to a good start.

His teacher told me when he is like that it takes an hour to and hour and a half for him to settle and be ok for the rest of the day, that means he is losing that time from his learning. I think I might have to get Natasha to drive him to school and I will pick him up from school as he doesn’t carry on when she takes him to school but then again she can be so very strict with him.

I remember when Blain use to love to be with nanna and was all over nanna and preferred nanna over anyone else, but now that he has grown up so much he is 9 now he isn’t like that and I know it is to be expected but still at times it hurts.